Chris Makey’s Financial Focus

Chris Makey interviews Darren and Qun from the financial industry about currency exchange rates, GDP growth, Brexit and the growing popularity of snooker in China!

Currency Exchange Rates and limits on investing

Current exchange rates are interesting, Darren describes, as the Dollar is particularly strong at the moment with Trump expected to expand the US economy through government spending.

This is a good thing if you have dollars and want to change to Renminbi, but not so good if you have Renminbi and want dollars!

Darren discusses how the Chinese government, concerned about the volatility of exchange rates, added and updated controls so that people looking to invest their money abroad have a $50,000 yearly limit through a capital account.

In the past people have tried to get around that limit by banding their $50,000 limits together, but the People’s Bank of China has targeted this by restricting what can be done with the money. For example this money cannot be used to buy property abroad.

Listen to the this interview here:

GDP Growth

Qun mentions that the rate of GDP growth for 2017 in China is 6.7%, a number that has been deteriorating in recent years compared to 12% in 2008.

Darren describes how, for the UK, a rate of 2% would be great and this makes China’s 6.7% sound amazing by comparison. China is still a developing country, however, and therefore a higher rate of growth is expected in comparison to the UK.

Listen for more here:

Article 50 and Brexit

Darren and Qun both agree that it is unclear what the implications of Brexit will be in the long run. Qun simply states that for two years matters will most likely stay the same but after that it is unclear.

Banks are already looking to move out of London including Goldman Sachs. Darren says this is the case as banks want to prioritise being able to offer services to the whole of Europe, something that will be called into question once the UK has left the EU.

Hear Darren and Qun discuss this further:

Snooker in China

To end on a lighter note, Qun describes the growing popularity of snooker in China citing the Chinese population’s desire to learn things from Western countries including the UK and the USA.

It is also gaining popularity thanks to the success of Chinese snooker players including Ding Junhui.